By Ursula Newman and Nick Escalada
Are you overwhelmed by the stressors of the 21st century? Maybe jaded by the mundanity of scientific understanding? Or, perhaps, numbed by the security of modern medicine? Fortune favors you, my faithful compatriot! On Saturday, May 3, a collection of student-led clubs organized Cal Poly Humboldt’s inaugural Renaissance Faire in the university’s football stadium.
The event was spearheaded by the Archery Club, who put together the faire’s premiere attraction of good old medieval target practice. The club laid plans for a faire at the end of last semester, with ideas having circulated even further back. Their coordination came to fruition just in time for an end-of-the-year extravaganza. Guests delighted in slinging arrows at the club’s giant targets after some safety instruction and were supplied with quality longbows, quivers and wrist and finger guards.
Archery Club Captain Juli Suzukawa expressed their gratitude for the tight-knit community the club provides them.
“It’s a really safe space for me. I’ve been in the club since my freshman year and I’m a grad student now, so it’s been a while,” Suzukawa said. “I feel like it’s a space where people can be themselves and be comfortable.”
Attendees were encouraged to show up and show out in their best medieval attire with a $1 discount on admission. Outfits ranged from traditional frocks and corsets to elf ears, wizard hats and dagger hairpins. A few swordsmen brought model blades to the gathering, and a small training circle quickly convened where stances and techniques were exchanged.
Musketeers well-versed in the art of the foil also made an appearance from the Fencing Club. Riley Chestein, the club’s volunteer coach, explained the fencers’ objective for the day.
“We’re using today as kind of a casual practice. [We’re] doing some practice — we call them assaults,” Chestein said. “That way people have something to watch, we get some practice in; it’s a win-win situation.”
Other festivities on the field included juggling, hula hoops hoisted into the sky and un-lit fire pole spinning by the Humboldt Circus. An impressive dance performance by Ballet Folklorico de Humboldt, as well as heated bouts of tug-of-war occurred throughout the day.
The university’s chemistry club, Free Radicals, workshopped the most spectacular reactions they could stage for an extensive alchemy display.
“Usually we do it in the lab, so I had to find certain demos that the school would approve safety-wise,” Club President Andrew Jenkins Cruz said.
Jenkins Cruz presented several magic tricks, including color changing liquids and a gummy bear sacrificed to the fire in hot potassium chloride, a substance used in rocket fuel. The result was a firework-like display of light and smoke, all contained within a test tube.
Great revelry was had by all, with spirits high and mirth aplenty. As the evening drew to an end, the new experiences of the day left attendees hopeful that this gathering may become a new Cal Poly Humboldt tradition.
Nick and Ursula are devoted town criers for the Humboldt academy. They are part-time minstrels of the lute and harp respectively, and dabble in swordplay and sorcery.
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